Xi Jinping’s quest to complete China has barely begun
Despite such a virulent defense of the policy, its prices are obvious. Xi’s technique has shaken customer confidence and spending, key to China’s quest to shift to a more customer-oriented economy, while aggravating disruptions such as emerging youth unemployment and deteriorating housing. market. The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday lowered its 2022 expansion forecast for China to 3. 2 percent from a projection of 8. 1 percent last year.
Politics is “a key marker of Xi’s ability to lead the country through the crisis. His good fortune is inextricably connected to that of Xi’s government,” said Diana Fu, an associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto.
At the start of the pandemic, China’s measures were among the strictest in the world and were criticized for going too far in restricting residents’ movements. But in mid-2020, the country declared victory over the virus. home, his greedy reaction hailed as an example of his impressive government and attention to his citizens.
He then attacked the omicron variant. In recent weeks, China has battled new outbreaks, adding the highly transmissible BF. 7 omicron subvariant. As of Monday, at least 36 Chinese cities, with a population of nearly two hundred million, were in some form of lockdown.
Shanghai covid headquarters: food shortages, robots, hungry animals
Shanghai officials have ordered all districts to conduct mass testing twice a week over the next month. The Xinjiang region has banned other people from leaving. Inner Mongolia has closed 26 universities in the regional capital Hohhot, stranding more than 240,000 academics and 15,000 teachers and on campus. In Hengzhou, Henan Province, citizens of a district were ordered to take PCR tests twice a day for 3 days.
Schools in Xi’an were closed after a few dozen cases were discovered in the city of thirteen million people. Yulin areas, Shaanxi, carried out “lockdown practices” for 3 days despite reporting no coronavirus cases.
“They suffer the curse of the victor. They didn’t know the pandemic would last so long. Now they face this Sisyphus war all the time,” said Yanzhong Huang, senior fitness researcher at the Council on Foreign Relations.
As the rest of the world grapples with life with the virus, adding Asia to the maximum, China’s isolation has deepened.
Part of the public would probably be starting to lose patience. The relentless blockades encouraged a wave of interest in the “runxue”, the examination of the leak. A video gave the impression online last week of a woman running through the streets of Shenzhen shouting “Excessive covid control. Give me back my freedom!
And on Thursday, images and videos showed a banner hanging from a bridge in Beijing’s Haidian district, their protest message saying: “We need food, proof from the People’s Republic of China. “The photographs temporarily disappeared on Chinese social networking sites.
The tragedy of September, when a bus overturned and killed 27 other people while taking them to a quarantine center in Guizhou, still weighs heavily. Students at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics discussed this week about being transported late to quarantine in the afternoon. Locations.
“Transparency is important. We cannot settle for these measures because we do not know what is happening. What we need is clarity about what is being done to us and a selection to make. Without it. . . It’s very complicated to build trust,” said one student, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
According to Jin in Hong Kong, a feasible exit strategy would redirect resources from lockdowns and mass testing and prepare physical care infrastructure, especially in rural areas, for outbreaks. It would focus on stockpiling antivirals, approving the use of mRNA vaccines and targeting the country’s unvaccinated older population.
But there are few signs that China is preparing to move in that direction. Liang Wannian, an epidemiologist and senior adviser to the government, said in a recent interview with state broadcaster CCTV that there is no timetable for deviating from existing politics. Dawn of victory, but we have not yet reached the other aspect of victory,” he said.
Xi sent a similar message to Politburo members in July. “If outbreaks happen, we want them severely,” he said. We can’t back down in the battle. “
With the public still having no options to cooperate and central leaders succeeding in blaming the local government for poor implementation, the government feels little pressure to abandon politics. Its most recent count is approximately 5200 dead.
“They have a lot of room for maneuver and are too worried,” said Zhao Dahai, executive director of the Joint Center for Health at Shanghai and Yale Jiao Tong University.
The fact that 0 covid gives the government some other social lever would possibly be one more thing in its sustainability. In June, thousands of citizens arrived in Henan province to protest against rural banks that had blocked their accounts. Protesters suddenly learned that their physical activity codes, a tricolor formula for tracking physical activity, had turned red and banned them from traveling.
Li plans to leave tourism and return from northern Sanya to Harbin. She and her husband feel suffocated and exhausted by the tests needed to send their daughter to school.
“It’s about the pandemic,” he said. “We are under general surveillance. “
Lyric Li in Seoul and Vic Chiang in Taipei contributed to this report.
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